


Flying Lessons

by GraphiteHeron



Category: Transformers: Prime
Genre: (but we all knew that anyway), Gen, Laserbeak will never forgive me for this, Megatron is a meanie-head, Pre-Series, Starscream as a babysitter, and neither will Soundwave, baby'Cons, because the baby'Cons are little terrors, but he'll deny that until his dying day, no seriously he's actually good at it, random original planet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-11
Updated: 2012-11-11
Packaged: 2017-11-18 10:09:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/559815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GraphiteHeron/pseuds/GraphiteHeron
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pre-Prime series, a handful of Decepticons set up base on a far-away planet to harvest the energon there away from prying Autobot eyes.  There's a flock of younglings with them.  Angry at Starscream again, Megatron forces him into babysitting duty.  Starscream's not as mad about that as he expected to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Flying Lessons

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Flick](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Flick), [Els](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Els).



“And what do you have to say for yourself _this_ time, Starscream?” Megatron demands, claws digging in to Starscream’s lower mandible, forcing the Seeker’s nervous eye-contact.

“Lord Megatron, I…”  Whatever Starscream has in mind to defend himself is lost in the angry engine roar from Knock Out’s workstation in the base.

“Backdraft!  _Get your pack of rabid little arsonists out of my lab_!”

The big mech in question looks sheepish but utterly shameless as he shepherds the younglings out of the medic’s lab.  A billowing cloud of smoke follows them out, sickly black and smelling strongly of toxic chemicals.  Nearby, the resident priest and field medic cackles until he leaks lubricant, laughing too hard to care about the mess.

Megatron’s optics suddenly spark with intent.  “You think yourself so fit to lead, Starscream?  Then _lead_.  The younglings are your responsibility for the duration of our stay on this planet.”

“B-but, Lord Megatron, I…”

“Or would you rather I tear out your spark?”

“I…would be honored to watch the younglings, Lord Megatron.”

Starscream vents a hefty sigh when Megatron’s claws release him.  Unwise to bait the beast when he’s in a mood to follow through with his threats of homicide, after all.  As humiliating as it is to be relegated to mere babysitter when he should be Megatron’s second, or better yet, replacement, acquiescing ensures his survival for the moment.

There is a whole pack of younglings for him to watch, dragged with them away from Cybertron after the fall of the Air Academy during the war.  All of them fly.

For a moment, rage swells in Starscream’s spark.  These younglings should rightly be back at the Air Academy, learning their history, significance, _legacy_ as Seeker-kin, not here on the backwater rock of Taphergel being cooped up in a ramshackle base, fleeing from the Autobot who crushed the Academy and the youth sectors.

But.  Another sigh.  But here they are, hiding on a backwater planet inhabited by giant, mind-reading squid, harvesting the energon originally dropped on Taphergel for storage.  If nothing else, Taphergel at least has a good atmosphere.  Maybe Starscream will have a chance to scrape the younglings off on another guardian and sneak away for a good flight.

The younglings, as if sensing his reticence to watch them, cling to him like shadows.  Two sets of spark-twins (two!) and a handful of others, satellites trapped in his orbit as he walks away from his confrontation with Megatron.  His own little moons, they, brightly colored and unarmored, mostly-bare little protoforms so delicate and fragile that Starscream has no real idea how they even survived the attack on the Academy.

Starscream stands on a makeshift balcony overlooking the vast expanse of beige sand of the desert they’ve taken as their base while they harvest the planet’s energon sources.  In the distance, wind whips up a whirling pillar of sand.  The heat makes the horizon shimmer like wet glass.

Little fingers curl around Starscream’s own and tug, demanding his attention.  It’s little Blackrazor, black on acid green, scowling and demanding the older Seeker’s attention.

“What?” Starscream hisses at the little one clutching his hand.

Horizon Walker, deep teal on bright copper, bravely meets Starscream’s hostile gaze.  “Teach us how to fly.”

“Yeah,” demands little Razorwing, gunmetal and silver.  “Teach us how to fly good!”

“Fly _well_ ,” corrects one of the Intruder twins, Sunshrike, shades of ash-grey and not-white.  “Please teach us how to fly well, as you do.”

“Please, Star?” adds Ghostflower, paler than her twin, the other Intruder.  “You just…you’re so _pretty_ when you fly, and we want to be like that too.”

“Pleeeeeease?” pipes up the leg-weight firmly attached to Starscream’s shin, Redsky, shades of gold and red.  Starscream’s other leg is being strangled by little Darkstar, shades of deep purple and shimmering blues and greens.

The Twister twins are a little further away, Shearwind, grey and rust, bouncing around excitedly at the prospect, Stormbreaker, grey and slate blues, feigning disinterest but Starscream can see the anticipation simmering under the surface.

Blackrazor is still yanking at Starscream’s fingers.

All of their little optics, shades of crimson or bright orange, look up at him iridescent with hope and eagerness and something akin to reverence.  Well.  Starscream _has_ been starving for a little respect around here.  What respect more pure, uncomplicated, and all-consuming than the worship of children?

But no, no, he is _not_ a babysitter.  He has things to do!  Very important things, both working for Megatron and working against him, keeping the other Decepticons in line, and…

A glance up from the balcony through a window above shows him the sleek black-and-purple femme Shadowdancer, staring down at him with predatory interest.  Ah, right.  The Intruders are hers, spark-split carried within her and delivered into the war.  While she’ll win no awards for maternal instinct in any solar system, she is an efficient guardian.  In her scarlet optics is a warning.  He can teach her young, or she will peel him plate by plate before she claws his protoform apart.

He’s seen her do it, too.  Right.  One hand, teaching the young to fly.  On the other, being caught between Megatron and Shadowdancer.

Survival instinct swallows his pride whole.

Starscream vents out his deepest and most put-upon sigh yet, wings twitching.  “Fine,” he relents, voice dripping with resentment.  “You new-sparks wish to learn from a master?  Then follow.”

The older Seeker backs up two steps and sprints three forward, throwing himself up and off of the balcony, arms spread wide.  For a moment, he hangs in the air like that, breeze caressing between his claws, sun glinting off of his optics.  Starscream lets himself dissolve on the wind, pieces sliding apart, breaking into the sky.  When he snaps back together, he’s only sleek angles, the sharp lines of a Cybertronian jet.  A thermal takes him up, up, spiraling towards the apex of the sky, shedding the trappings and constraints of the ground-bound more with each rotation.

A strong gust catches his wings, a lover’s kiss to his fuselage, a sweet slide over the curve of his cockpit.    For a moment, there are no threats, there is no aftermath of war, no responsibilities, no Decepticons.  He’s just Starscream, Lord of the Skies.

He is Lord of the Skies, and surrounded by his loving vassals like a swirl of multi-colored leaves or perhaps shards of stained glass, whirling around him in weak imitation of his every move.  Spark singing with the rush of flight, Starscream banks to the left, riding the crest of a west-bound wind, leading his little satellites across the open desert and field of vivid azure above.  They fall into his jetstream, perhaps on instinct, as he leads them away from the Decepticon base, all the way out until the desert ends and crystalline forest edged in jagged mountains flows beneath them like river rapids, faster, faster…

Starscream pulls a split-S turn faster than the little ones can catch up with him, flinging himself north.  And again, to the south.  Another, until the younglings can follow him with some degree of grace.  Unbidden, a hint of pride trickles through his EMF at their ability to learn from his example in just three displays.  He gets a bouquet of triumph in response to his approval, and Starscream’s spark flares up, mood buoyed by the raw exaltation.

He barrel rolls until his glittering satellites can follow him, then loops up and around and down into the forest, flying with his wings perpendicular to the planet so that he can weave between the trees.  The flame-light of the high sun refracts through every crystal leaf, bathing the jets in dapple light and tickling points of warmth.  Starscream inverts completely when forest becomes mountain, climbing up so close to the gritty stone jags that he nearly scrapes his cockpit on the lavender rocks.

The larger jet rights himself when he bursts above the peaks of the mountain range, copied by his smaller followers.  He points his nose straight up and pushes through all the chains of gravity until he hits the clouds and breaks them.  The world disappears in a wash of grey, and then pure cobalt as Starscream hits the zenith of the dome of the sky.

Walled in only by eternal blue on one side and grey-white vapor on the other, the only constant is joyous vertigo and the tilt of a shifting horizon as Starscream demonstrates how to properly bank, how to skim sideways on a draft, how to corkscrew through the air with grace no grounder will ever have.  Starscream veers east, passing the Decepticon base from so high up it looks like a footprint in the sand.

Further east than that, the vast indigo expanse of Taphergel’s largest ocean stretches off into the distance even farther than Starscream can see from his majestic vantage.  He wheels down, leading the younglings toward the water so swiftly that the wind screams along their wings, pulling up just in time to tilt and drag a wing through the waves.  The chilly spray hisses and waves lap Starscream’s fuselage.

The younglings attempt to emulate his grace, but most of them end up getting dunked, spluttering up out of the water dripping wet all over, Redsky in particular.

Starscream arches back up into the sky, the wind-chill of ocean spray on his frame shiveringly pleasant.  He trumpets a challenge across his EMF and spits training ammo at Razorwing.  Best way to teach new-sparks how to fight, he’s found.  Energon blasts are too expensive and potentially disastrous to use without proper training first.  Training ammo is harmless, cheaply made, and easily made a game of.

The formation breaks and the new-sparks scatter around him, wheeling and looping almost out of control, trying to knock him down with their own training ammo.  Shearwind surges up from underneath, and Starscream merely tilts, letting hir pass him by completely.  With age and practice, that maneuver might get hir somewhere, but zie’s got a long way to go.

Suddenly all of the younglings bank and charge, zipping off to torment another target.  Starscream’s comm fills with the screeching distress call of Laserbeak, Soundwave’s cassette, who was apparently sent to make sure of Starscream’s obedience.

A quick count reveals that the Intruder twins have disappeared.  Except not.  They’re up above the combat, vanishing into the backlighting of the sun before they drop out of the sky on top of Laserbeak in root-mode, clawing at the cassette a bit before taking their miniature jet forms back and circling again.  And the Intruders aren’t the only ones with that idea.  The Twisters are next.  Laserbeak tries to twist away from Stormbreaker dropping from above and is battered into by Shearwind double-teaming him from underneath.

The cassette suffers through more attacks, both ranged and martial.  Starscream’s EMF thrums with vicious satisfaction.  If Soundwave is going to spy on him, the quiet ‘Con can most definitely put up with his cassette getting trounced by a bunch of new-sparks.

Starscream pretends not to notice Laserbeak’s plight for a few minutes before winging his way over, rounding up the younglings and shepherding them back to base, making a production out of playing hero.  He’s too busy making sure the others don’t get lost to make Blackrazor let go of Laserbeak, though.  The black and acid green new-spark hangs off of the cassette’s back end by his dente and won’t disengage.

Blackrazor is only dislodged from Laserbeak’s aft once they land back at base in root mode, and the cassette zips back to Soundwave for safe shelter from the marauding younglings.

Evening begins to set in, staining the sky in shades of violet and Starscream shoos the new-sparks off to their recharge nest all worn out.  Soundwave catches him in another corridor, cable tentacles pinning Starscream against a wall, EMF radiating annoyance, face mask reflecting all the footage of Starscream letting loose and having fun with the younglings.

Innocence has no place amongst the Decepticons.  The clear implication is that Starscream’s reputation, and perhaps Starscream himself, won’t survive if this footage gets out.

The images change to Laserbeak getting mobbed by the new-sparks, and Soundwave draws a finger across Starscream’s neck cables.

“My apologies,” Starscream lies smoothly, perturbed, but not scared.  “I didn’t see in time to prevent Laserbeak’s…distress.  I can assure you, it won’t happen again.”

Soundwave jerks his head and prods Starscream sharply in the chest armor as if to say _it had better not_ without onlining his vocalizer.

The head of intelligence stalks off, leaving a suitably chastened second in command wondering when the last time he’d been blackmailed out loud had been.  Soundwave doesn’t talk much these days, and if anyone’s blackmailing Starscream anymore it’s he.

Venting another irritated sigh, his good mood of flight more or less dispersed and his previous sour outlook back in place, Starscream stalks off to his personal quarters.

He expects to power down in his berth and not have to deal with the world until he wakes up in the morning.  However, his berth is already occupied.  Quite occupied.  Apparently, while Soundwave had been threatening Starscream in the hallway, the new-sparks had sneaked out of their quarters and into his.  They’re all piled up and offlined to the world, except Sunshrike, who is nearby but avoiding physical contact with the others except for his spark-twin Ghostflower.

This isn’t cute.  Never.  Starscream _refuses_ to be charmed by the sight of all the littlest Seeker-kin left alive so enamored of him that they refuse to stay away from him.

Losing battle.

Starscream shakes his head and pushes the little ones around until he can arrange himself in the mess of protoforms and rest.  _After_ he locks the door to ensure that nobody catches him cuddling with the younglings.

**Author's Note:**

> So, this was actually sort of an AU from an RP-verse born in Steam Chat with a friend. I mentioned an idea about Starscream getting mobbed by baby'Cons for flying lessons, and my friend Flick said DO EEET, so I did it. Most of the baby'Cons are RP characters de-aged (and occasionally de-killed) to make them young enough for these shenanigans.
> 
> I own Backdraft, Shadowdancer, Cloudburst (the laughing priest 'Con), the Intruder twins, and Horizon Walker. And planet Taphergel in all its weirdness.  
> Flick owns the other original characters, except for Stormbreaker.  
> Flick's RP partner Els owns Stormbreaker.  
> Blackrazor is a Baldur's Gate easter egg, for any gamers out there.
> 
> YouTube video footage and music to set the mood: http://www.youtube.com/watch/?v=YWPlrE9rNV8


End file.
